Amid all the fall arts coming this season, here are some promising theater shows.

From SpectorDance’s Ocean Trilogy and East West dance pieces and the Monterey County Artists Open Studio Tour in September, to the lush and swinging Pink Martini and the fantastical Salinas Valley Comic Con in December, the Fall Arts Preview Calendar (p. 26) helps you track down the best of the season’s arts and culture. Here, a closer look at a few theater offerings worth considering.

Picasso at the Lapin Agile at The Western Stage • Oct. 28-Nov. 18

Picasso and Einstein walk into a bar. Funny man Steve Martin’s 1993 funny play imagines a meeting of Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein at a Parisian bar called the Lapin Agile (“Nimble Rabbit”) in 1904 on the cusp of both their breakthroughs. It’s a rollicking, roiling discourse about genius, art, science, the future, sex, capitalism, relationships and drinking. A king who comes from a faraway place makes a cameo.

Present Laughter at MPC’s Morgan Stock Stage • Nov. 2-12

Very British playwright Noel Coward’s 1939 play is about a vain comedy actor sent into conniptions by a host of people making demands on his attention. It’s full of urbane lines like “She’s one of the few actresses living who can be dressed by Schiaparelli and looks as if she had been upholstered by Maples.” What does it mean? That’s above my pay grade. But if you know, this comedy may be for you.  

Mama Mia! at Golden Bough Theatre • Nov. 16-Dec. 23

The full title is Mamma Mia! The Smash Hit Musical, and that’s no hype. The eighth-longest running show in West End (England’s Broadway) history is built on the poppy bedrock of 1970s ABBA songs including “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance on Me.” It’s pure escapist entertainment that people make a pilgrimage to in order to sing along. PacRep is known for its big, popular musicals, so this is definitely in their wheelhouse.

Parallel Lives at Pink Flamingo • Nov. 17, 18, 24, 25

This is a series of skits culled from Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy’s two-woman, Off-Broadway The Kathy and Mo Show that proves at times funny, poignant and smart. There’s one skit in which a woman has a ridiculous conversation in her super-feminist studies course, then talks about caring for her gay nephew who has AIDS. Another imagines a precarious dinner date between a preppie college girl and a frat dude, with a dash of social consciousness.

A Charlie Brown Christmas at New Wharf Theater • Dec. 1-10

One of the daring but enduring things about Charles Schultz’s Peanuts strip, cartoon specials and musicals is how much humor and poignancy is spun out of dysfunction, melancholy and sadness, while still concluding on an uplifting note. This charming and jazzy children’s musical is a fine way to enter the holiday season acknowledging a full range of those emotions.